


a canny crew and keen

by Attila



Series: leave behind a legend (a tale for all to tell) [4]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirates, Background Kash/Keyleth, Families of Choice, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-09 16:59:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12280704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Attila/pseuds/Attila
Summary: Zahra meets Kash (and then everyone else).





	a canny crew and keen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scarletclarinet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletclarinet/gifts).



Zahra doesn’t realize it at the time, but the moment her life changes forever is right about when she sees the human man yelling obscenities as he stabs some strange specter with a spear and then casts a spell, blasting three of them away from him in an arc. She is, reluctantly, impressed. Given all the shouting, she’d expected to find someone being murdered, not someone who appears to be quite enthusiastically doing the murdering himself.

“And you can tell that _bitch_ ,” he snarls, a beam of light slamming into one of the spirits and finally disintegrating it, “that she can _get fucked_! And _not by me_!”

But as she watches, leaning mildly on her staff and learning some new ways to express burning hatred, she starts to realize, slowly, that this man isn’t _quite_ as on top of things as she’d thought at first. His spells start doing less damage, and then they stop coming at all, and he just uses his spear, panting and bleeding, and his swearing starts to take on a slightly desperate note.

Well. In that case, an eldritch blast to the groin of the nearest specter—they don’t appear to have genitals or sexes, but a girl can still _hope_ —seems only polite.

#

“Who the _fuck_ are you?” the man says after they’ve cleared the area, taking a deep drink from a water-skin hanging from his belt and then wiping his mouth gracelessly with the back of his hand. “And I had that handled, for the record.”

Zahra draws herself up and looks down her nose at him—simple enough, considering he’s collapsed onto the dirt in apparent exhaustion—and says, as coolly as she can, “Zahra Hydris. And _handled_? Tell me, did your cunning plan to take care of that yourself involve bleeding heavily on them? Because if not, you’ll forgive me if I’m somewhat doubtful.”

“Like fuck I’ll forgive you.” He coughs a couple times, and then spits a tooth out onto the ground and makes a face. “Ugh, gross.”

“Ah, yes,” Zahra says, her sarcasm as withering as possible. “I see now how your death was not imminent.”

He snorts, letting his spear fall to the side and leaning back on his hands. “They weren’t going to kill me, just drag me back to—somewhere I didn’t want to go. Come to think of it, the imminent death would’ve been preferable, frankly.”

She raises an eyebrow, silent, and he winces and rubs at his forehead. “I think the blood loss might be making me a little stupid. Uh. My wife’s a literally evil bitch, all right? I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Ah.” If she’d ever escaped, back _before_ , she can’t help thinking that she might’ve yelled just as loudly, cursed just as hard, fought just as desperately. Preferred the imminent death to the inevitable alternative. “So was my father,” she offers at last: an olive branch of sorts, evil for evil, pain for pain.

He eyes her. “Literally?”

“Unfortunately so.”

“Huh,” he says. One side of his mouth quirks, almost reluctantly, into a smile. It looks awkward and stiff, like he’s maybe a bit out of practice. “Fucking sucks, am I right?”

She smiles back, just as carefully. “You are.”

He nods. “Did I say thank you, by the way? For the whole—not that I didn’t have it handled—but for the assist.”

“You did not.”

“Thought so.” He rolls his head on his shoulders, cracking his neck, and does not, she can’t help but notice, express any gratitude. “So, I really wasn’t paying attention the first time—who the fuck are you, anyway?”

#

“I made a friend,” Kash says to her, their second day on the merchant ship Zahra had somehow managed to get them terrible jobs on. Neither of them have skills that are exactly _marketable_ , but Zahra has a good smile when she cares to use it, and that combined with Kash’s glare can do wonderful things.

Zahra grins at him. It’s gotten easier—for both of them, she thinks—with practice, but it still takes a little effort to keep it genuine, not charming. “I refuse to believe you did anything of the sort.”

“Okay, you’ve got me there,” he admits easily, climbing into her tiny bunk and stretching out next to her. “I didn’t make a friend. But I did meet this one guy, and we arm wrestled and drank and didn’t talk about our feelings at _all_ , and all my experience of people tells me that’s as good as it gets.”

“Mm,” she says, patting his scarred arm. “That does sound emotionally constipated and extremely pleasant.”

“Knew you’d agree.” He shifts and puts his arm around her shoulders. They don’t really fit in the bed together, and neither of them has ever been particularly touchy-feely—but it’s an experiment, like both of them feeling out the boundaries of what they like. What it is that’s good about having _friends_. She thinks maybe the cuddling can stay, at least sometimes.

“Anyway,” he says, “he’s got some badass adoptive sister best friend who’s on this ship too, so him and me, I think maybe we’re the same person on the inside.”

_Sister_. She feels the word out, rolls it around the inside of her mouth, on her tongue, against all the boundaries of her fucked up brain. She thinks maybe that can stay too. “It does sound as though the two of you have a lot in common.” Kash squeezes her shoulder, just a little, and she feels him relax. “What’s your new doppelganger’s name, out of curiosity?”

“Huh? Oh. Fucking _Grog_ , apparently. Maybe his dad was evil too.”

And she laughs, impossibly, and lets it fill her up with joy.

#

“You know,” Pike muses, somehow still calm, “I think we probably could’ve dealt with either the storm or the rocks, you know, on their own.”

“Great,” Kash snaps, in between gasping for breath. “Thanks, Pike. That’s just _so helpful_ right now. Fucking _wow_ , and also _fuck you_.”

“Hey,” Grog says, dunking Kash back under the waves and bringing him back up sputtering and choking and looking even more like a drowned cat than before, all hissing and spitting and clawing. “Shut the fuck up.”

“No, that was fair.” Pike tries to get a better grip on Grog, and her hands slip off futilely, as a wave picks them up and tosses them underwater again, and they all gasp for breath just before the water closes over them and dashes them against yet another rock.

Grog keeps holding on, and Zahra thinks a formless, directionless prayer, and they all come up together, Pike and Kash shouting simultaneous spells, and Zahra feels her body grow warmer and stronger and her bones knit back together.

She grabs Kash’s hair with one hand and Grog’s belt with the other and absolutely fucking _refuses_ to die.

#

When they first start rising out of the water, she thinks it’s just another wave cresting, but they keep going, up and up, until even Grog’s feet are dangling in the air, far above he sea.

“Uh, guys.” Grog looks a strange mix of confused and deeply proud. “I think I can fly.”

Zahra feels herself start to slide down, pulled free from his arms by gravity, and yelps, hooking her elbow around his neck. “ _Wonderful_ , darling,” she says, her voice scratchy and hoarse from yelling so much. “But I don’t think the rest of us can, so please do hang on, hmm?”

“Oh, uh, yeah.” His arms tighten around all of them, and then they begin to move, slowly at first, and then quite quickly, until at last, they drop again, lightly, and onto _solid ground_. The jolt makes them let go, all at once, and then they collapse onto the damp beach.

“Oh,” Zahra says. She’s never in her life been so happy to be getting sand in her hair. “Oh, thank any gods that have their ears turned in this direction.”

“Almost any,” Kash mutters from next to her.

“Almost any,” she agrees.

“I must say,” a new voice drawls, “when I decided to go for an afternoon walk on the beach, you four weren’t _quite_ what I expected to find.”

“Yeah?” Kash says. His voice is barely more than a tired rasp, but he hasn’t lost the tone of combative sarcasm. “What were you expecting?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Zahra pries her eyes open, squinting against the sunlight, to see a human man with the darker skin of the southern nations standing, smiling at them, his hands on his hips and his head tilted a little to the side. “Perhaps a handsome young man of easily persuadable virtue? Though…” His voice turns teasingly speculative. “Perhaps that could _still_ be what I find.”

“Fuck no,” Kash says.

“Yeah, okay, sure.”

Zahra chokes a little and raises her aching body up enough to stare at Grog. “Darling, how on earth could you possibly have the _energy_?”

Grog shrugs. “I mean. After a drink.”

“Of _water_ , I hope,” Pike says weakly, not moving at all from where she’s lying on the sand.

“Sure, that too.”

Kash groans, flopping an arm around to put it over his face. “I hate everyone on this beach.”

Zahra smiles. “That’s how he says thank you.”

“Well, in that case,” the man says, smiling back. “He’s very welcome.”

#

Two days later, after Grog and Gilmore have presumably fucked each other silly—Zahra does _not_ want to know—the four of them manage to stumble downstairs to the bar area, collapsing around a table and looking at each other. Gilmore cheerfully lays flagons of ale in front of each of them, and Zahra says, awkwardly, “That’s very kind, but you know, we can’t even pay for the room you gave us.”

Gilmore waves an airy hand in the air. “Oh, on the house, of course.” He winks at Grog, who grins and holds his hand out for a fistbump.

“Hell yeah it is.”

Pike giggles, putting a hand over her mouth and shoving Grog with her shoulder. “By the way, where are we? Besides not drowning, which is probably a good place to be.”

“Ah, yes. This would be the pirate city of Daggerbay.”

“Pirates?” Pike says, putting her chin in her hands and blinking a few times. She looks far too angelic to be so interested in crime. “That sounds good. Tell us more about that!”

Gilmore takes a seat. “Well, if you _insist_.”

#

Later on the building fills up a lot more, though Gilmore keeps coming back to their table to give them free food and drinks and to talk, much to the evident disapproval of the half-elf behind the bar. He sits with them whenever there’s a lull, cheerfully telling increasingly ridiculous stories about pirate antics and slowly, though he doesn’t know it, stealing Zahra’s heart.

Not that she wants _him_ , just—a life. She wants a life, the kind of life where she isn’t beholden to anyone but her friends, doesn’t have a home but the one she builds from the ground up. She wants to tell the kind of stories that end in her, gloriously free, with her face to the wind.

“Z?” Kash whispers to her, and she puts his arm around his shoulders and squeezes. He half-smiles. “Yeah, sounds good.”

“Gilmore!” a girl’s voice cries, and then a tall half-elf with a mass of brilliantly red hair throws herself at their new friend, her arms going around his neck. “Hi, Gilmore!”

“Oh, _hello_.” Gilmore pats her head. “Weren’t you leaving? Again?”

“Well,” she says, dropping into the last chair at the table. “I really _meant_ to this time, but then I decided to sleep off the hangover, and then when I woke up it was night! And I thought I could come see you! And then I had another drink, and now I think _maybe_ I won’t leave until tomorrow.”

Gilmore laughs, his eyes fond. “Did you really?”

“Mm-hmm.” She looks up and blinks, apparently surprised to find herself surrounded by strangers. “Oh! Um, hi! Are you Gilmore’s friends? Gilmore, do you have friends? Because that’s _lovely_ , friends are wonderful. Don’t you think?” Rather unfortunately, she addresses this last to Kash, who scowls at her darkly and refuses to answer, and she shrinks back a little.

“Everyone,” Gilmore says, putting a hand on the girl’s shoulder, “this is Keyleth of the Air Ashari. She stumbled on the city during a journey of her own and somehow has yet to leave.”

“It’s the alcohol,” Keyleth says, clearly under the impression that she’s whispering and missing the mark rather pathetically. “I keep drinking it.”

Grog slaps her on the back, and she squeaks and grabs the edge of the table to keep from falling over onto the floor. “That’s cool. Drinking’s good.”

“Oh!” Pike sits straight up, raising a hand like she’s in class. “We should have a drinking contest!”

Keyleth lights up like the sun, looking as delighted as Zahra has ever seen anyone. “Yes!” she cries, practically cheering. “Let’s!”

Kash groans, and without even bothering to lower his voice, turns to Zahra and says, “I fucking hate this girl. She’s the _worst_.”

#

“And I dedicate this next song,” says the flautist, standing on the stage area Gilmore has set up for occasional entertainment, in front of the rest of his band, “to the _unbelievably beautiful_ gnome in the corner. Everyone, I think I’m in love! Scanlan Shorthalt is no longer a free agent! Ladies, gentlemen, you may all feel free to cry about your loss now. As for my future wife—tell me you feel the connection between us too!” He gestures, unmistakably, to their table, and then brings his flute to his lips.

Zahra turns to Pike, her eyebrows raised as high as they’ll go. “ _Darling_ ,” she says, as Kash chokes and Grog snorts and starts laughing, “you didn’t tell us you got engaged.”

“Did you?” Keyleth says, blinking guilelessly, like the absolute dear she is. “I mean, that’s lovely, but I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone.”

Kash groans, loudly and with a little too much disgust for it to be genuine, though Zahra doesn’t think anyone else has noticed yet. “ _Keyleth_.”

“What? Oh—oh, that’s not—you aren’t engaged. Oh, I see. I mean, I don’t! Not really. But, that is—I sort of see. I think?”

Pike smiles and sips her ale. “Well, it’s very sweet of him, I have to say. Still, it’s a traveling troupe of musicians. I’m sure he’ll be leaving soon, so there’s no need to worry about it, Keyleth.”

#

Gilmore beckons Zahra over to the bar, some months after she and Kash and Pike and Grog had first been carried to shore by his magic. It’s morning, and the city is going to sleep as he wipes down the tankards and brushes away any broken glass with a softly murmured spell. She redirects her steps towards the stairs and up to a warm, comfortable bed, and slides onto a stool in front of him. “Need help cleaning up?”

“Not at all,” he says. “In fact, I was just wondering if you were still considering piracy as a viable career option, given the miscreants you’ve met who’ve actually _taken_ it.”

She straightens up, feeling interest prick at her. “More than ever.”

“In that case, I might be able to give you a little help. I’ve recently—let’s say _acquired_ , for the sake of manners—a ship. Quite small, but sturdy and very fast. You might even be able to man it with just the six of you, if Mr. Shorthalt really is staying and Kashaw doesn’t follow through on all his threats to murder Keyleth.”

Zahra rolls her eyes, brushing her hair back away from her face. “Between you and me, I don’t really think murder is what he has in mind for her.”

“Oh!” Gilmore laughs. “ _Well_ , then.”

“But Gilmore—it’s not that I don’t appreciate everything you’ve done for us, because I _do_ , but you know we don’t have the money to buy a ship yet.”

“Ah, yes, I did think of that.” He puts the cloth away, but opens a cabinet and takes out two glasses—real _glasses_ , not the leather and tin bucket-like tankards he usually serves alcohol in—and then a bottle, with another spell, floating it down from a very high shelf. “I had an idea about that, actually. Perhaps, in exchange for the ship and a certain down payment, I could have a cut of your profits for the next—oh, year or so? Call it an old man’s folly, but you seem like a _very_ good investment.” He opens the bottle carefully and pours two measures of amber liquid into each glass and holds one out to her. “What do you say—Captain Hydris?”

#

“What the _fuck_ kind of crossbow is that?”

Zahra glances quickly over her shoulder at Kash’s shout, to where her first mate is clutching his bleeding arm and glaring viciously at a young white haired human man, who’s standing near the prow of the ship, not far from her, and holding what looks like a metal stick.

“It’s not,” the man calls out, politely enough, considering they’re currently attacking his ship, with an eye towards stealing everything on it. “I’m terribly afraid it’s something rather more horrifying. I’d apologize, but I believe you started it.”

“Yeah?” Kash snarls. “Well, _fuck you_ , asshole.”

“Kash!” Keyleth practically tumbles out of her sabertooth tiger form next to him, looking harried and very concerned. “Are you all right? Here—let me.” She reaches out a hand, now glowing with green magic, and touches his arm, knitting the skin back together.

“Uh,” Kash says, going violently red. “That’s—thank—I mean. That’s actually a spell _I_ can cast, for the record, so you really didn’t need to. You were fine, you could’ve kept—you didn’t have to drop the beast shape. Is all. I had it covered.”

“Oh.” Keyleth starts blushing just as hard, yanking her hand back like she’s been burned. “Of course you did! I didn’t mean to—I mean, I know you can take care of yourself! I didn’t mean to imply you couldn’t. I’m sure you were fine! You don’t need me! I’m just going to—um—that is, I’m going to be a cat again. Since you don’t need me.”

An instant later, a giant tiger is loping away from him, as Kash squeezes his eyes closed and very visibly considers jumping over the side of the ship.

Zahra sighs and hits the white haired man with an eldritch blast. He stumbles and swings around to point his stick at her.

“They’re sweet, aren’t they?” he says, smiling a little oddly, as he does— _something_ —and there’s a blasting sound. She barely dodges out of the way in time, and very luckily too, if the crack as a projectile hits the side of the ship is any indication.

She shakes her head, blasting him again. “Maybe if you don’t have to live with them.” She glances over her shoulder, noting the blackened hole where his weapon hit the wood and remembering the way Kash’s arm had looked. “Actually, would you like to?”

The man pauses. His weapon stays up, but he doesn’t fire again, even though she can feel his caution in the careful way he looks at her and the tense lines of his body. “Would I like to what?”

She grins at him. “Why, live with them, darling.”

#

“Captain Hydris,” Gilmore says, sitting next to her at the bar as she watches Scanlan dance with a laughing Pike. Kash protests loudly as Keyleth drags him out onto the floor for the same, though he can’t quite keep the smile from his face when she pulls him close and kisses him. On the sidelines, Percy and Grog applaud all four of them indiscriminately, loudly, cheerfully happy.

“Master Gilmore,” Zahra says, turning to look at him. She leans back against the bar. “Whatever can I do for you?”

“Hmm. Can I buy you a drink?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you buy _all_ our drinks.”

“It’s the least I can do for my favorite crew of pirates.” He reaches back behind the bar and pulls two large, foaming ales, handing her one. “To the success of your endeavors?”

“Beyond my wildest dreams,” she agrees, and they both drink. “Have I thanked you lately? For saving my life, for your investment—”

He waves it away. “No need. After all, whatever would I do without you seven coming in and disrupting my life every few months? Heaven forfend. Anyway, I actually had a job I wanted to pass along to you—not that I have any idea what it is, I’m afraid.”

“Oh?” she says. “That sounds fascinating, do tell.”

“There’s a man called Asum; he’s something of a—a broker, I suppose. For crime. People who want jobs done contact him, and he passes the information along to the right sort of criminal. He largely works on land, however, so when he had someone looking for _pirates_ , he asked me to lend a hand.” He holds up a piece of paper, sealed tightly and thick enough she can’t get any idea of the ink on the other side. “No stipulations on the size of the crew, just the effectiveness. And you and your crew, Captain Hydris, are _very_ effective. Interested?”

“I might be,” she says, reaching out to take the paper.

He holds on for just a moment. “If you don’t want to take the job, you must keep _completely_ silent about the contents of the offer. Honor among thieves, hmm?”

“Of course, Gilmore.”

He nods and lets go, standing again, as across the room, a group of dwarves call for more ale, but then he pauses. “Oh, by the way—that’s a very fine hat you’re wearing. Is it new?”

She laughs, reaching up to touch the brim. “Oh, this. I hear all the most _fashionable_ pirates wear them, didn’t you know? In all honesty, I may have been just the littlest bit drunk when I bought it, but the man assured me it wouldn’t fall off, even in the highest winds, and I thought—well, why not? We’ve the money for silly purchases these days. Perhaps I’ll make Kash wear it when he’s been particularly rude.”

“Now _that_ I would pay good money to see.” Gilmore tips an imaginary hat of his own at her, and says, “Safe travels, Captain.”

“And yourself, darling.” As he walks away, she looks down at the heavy paper in her hands, and then carefully breaks the seal and unfolds it, smoothing it out to read.

_Publically and obviously kidnap the two half-elf children of Syldor Vessar, Syngorn Ambassador to Emon, and bring them to Vasselheim. The children are twins, dark hair, twenty-eight years of age. They answer to Vex’ahlia and Vax’ildan, and they should be mostly harmless._

_Please respond with confirmation and details of plan, including date of proposed kidnap._

_Payment: 50 diamonds worth at least 100gp each._

Zahra lets out a quiet whistle. That’s more money than her crew normally sees in months of sailing. For that, she could certainly attack a city or two, even one like Emon. And if it gets them a little attention from the lawkeepers—well, she can think of worse fates than a little fame and notoriety. Lifting her head, she raises an arm to beckon Kash over, but stops at the last moment, letting her hand drop.

He and Keyleth have slowed the pace of their dance to just swaying, holding one another as they shift from foot to foot in the middle of the crowded, noisy bar, while all around them people yell and drink and fights break out. As she watches, Kash runs one hand through Keyleth’s hair, and her head drops down to his shoulder, and Zahra can’t help but smile.

Well. She can tell him tomorrow morning.

She folds the paper back up and slips it into her shirt for safekeeping before she takes another drink, watching her friends peacefully. The paper crinkles a little against her skin as she shifts in her seat, and Zahra toasts Gilmore across the room, grinning.

She has a very good feeling about this job.

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a gift fic for scarletclarinet in thanks for listening to the Your Standard Heroes podcast, a new D&D podcast by a bunch of my friends, who are (it may interest the readers of this series to know), largely queer and female. Canon queer relationships will almost certainly abound. Visit my [tumblr](https://attilarrific.tumblr.com) for more details, or if you want to get a ficlet of your very own choosing in exchange for listening!
> 
> Beta'd, as always, by the incomparable Rose (acommonrose on tumblr, zornslemon on AO3).
> 
> Title still from Zoe Mulfod's Sister Sail.


End file.
